Louis Armstrong's PDX

When the train arrived at Union Station in Portland, and finally stopped at the long covered platform, a great many passengers disembarked. The platform was crowded by the time I got down with my backpack.

Most of those getting off were headed across the tracks into the station. I followed them through the doors, into the high-vaulted main waiting room, where dozens of people, waiting for their own departures, were sitting on the long wooden benches.

The old station was interesting enough to wander around in for a few moments before I left out the entrance by the baggage room, out onto the curb by the entrance. There were a couple cabs waiting there, but I walked past them and over towards Broadway and headed south on foot to Burnside, through the Pearl District.

About twenty minutes later I walked into the front door of the Mark Spencer Hotel, a longtime institution in the West End of downtown Portland.

Their website tells me that it was originally called the Nortonia Hotel:

In 1907, The Nortonia Hotel opened its doors in the heart of Portland's Theatre District and quickly became known as the "home-away-from-home" for many of the artists who performed in the theatrical productions of the time.  The hotel registry was a who's who of the entertainment world including Louis Armstrong, Mel Torme, Spike Jones, Sammy Davis Jr., Lionel Hampton, Billy Barty, Kay Starr...

It obtained its current name of Mark Spencer in 1966. By the 1980's, however, when I first saw it, the neighborhood had become one of the least desirable places in downtown.

That's part of the reason that Portland's gay community took root there, and Adam once explained to me. The epicenter was the Fish Grotto restaurant, a seedy dive bar with no windows at the corner of 11th and Stark, as well as the Joyce Hotel, a classic old flophouse that occupies most of the building above the restaurant.

Both are directly diagonal from the Mark Spencer, although the Fish Grotto remains in name only. In recent years it has been transformed to the Sand Dollar, a modern hip seafood restaurant with windows to the street. The owner kept the old Fish Grotto sign as an homage to Portland history.

On the other hand, the Joyce Hotel is as seedy as ever, but lately the infamous institution has become out-of-place in the revived neighborhood, which is, after all, just a few blocks from Powell's Books and the Pearl.  Just across Stark is the local Ace Hotel. Not surprisingly it was all booked up for the weekend.